Till Death Do Them Part
by Kat-of-the-Streets
Summary: This is a prologue to the story "The Affair", so it is set in the "That American Girl" universe. How will Robert and other characters react to his wife's death?
1. Chapter 1

AN: So this is the one shot (haha) that I mentioned in the AN to the last chapter of _Son of Mine_. Those of you who did mention a preference all wanted to see something from the _That American Girl_ universe and so here it is.

It is a prologue to the story _The Affair_. If you haven't read that yet (or read it and forgotten about it), I'd actually suggest you read this first before you read _The Affair_ if you are interested in it.

This was supposed to be a one-shot but while writing it I somehow felt it would make more sense to divide this up into several (admittedly very short) chapters.

As I have written the complete story and only need to do a bit of proofreading I am fairly confident that I'll be able to update every second day.

Anyway, I hope that you like this story/prologue and I'd be very happy about a few reviews.

* * *

 _Dr. Clarkson_

"Lord Grantham?" The man does not react. He has fallen asleep on the settee in the library, drink in hand. It is no surprise though, his wife has fought for her life the last four weeks and grew increasingly weaker. So weak in fact that Lord Grantham has had to stop his weekly trips to London. The Earl had protested a little and said something about business but it couldn't be helped. Lady Grantham was about to die and even in a marriage such as theirs, the husband cannot go on business trips to London when his wife is dying. Especially if the rumors that it is not only business that calls the husband to London are true.

Ever since he came to Downton about 10 years ago he has heard very silent rumors about the Earl of Grantham having an affair. At first he did not want to believe it, the man seemed so nice and honorable and no one ever said anything out loud. But sick people talk, especially at night and some tenants, some servants, some villagers mentioned that they felt sorry for 'his lordship, the poor man'. He did not understand what they meant until he had spent a year in the village. He met Lady Grantham a few times and to say that she was unpleasant was an understatement. The woman treated him like a piece of scum. He also noticed that Lady Mary, the only child of the Earl and Countess spent a lot more time at her grandmother's house than would have been considered usual.

"Dr. Clarkson," the Earl now says and gets up.

"I am sorry Lord Grantham, but your wife passed away in her sleep. My deepest condolences." Lord Grantham nods and says "Thank you. For everything." He is invited to stay for breakfast and a stranger breakfast he has never been part of. Old Lady Grantham, Mr. Crawley, and Mrs. Crawley have all come up from the village. They are all in mourning of course, the whole family is wearing black but there is an air of relief around them. Of course that in itself isn't so unusual, families often feel a sense of relief when a loved one who has suffered a long illness has died, but this is different. No one says anything but not because they are afraid of upsetting one another but because they are afraid of saying things they shouldn't be saying. No one seems to have cried, no one seems close to crying, none of the usual platitudes have been said so far.

When he leaves, Lord Grantham thanks him again, as would be proper. The whole family has behaved very proper just not very hurt or moved or sad. Not sad in the least. He shrugs his shoulders when he leaves the grounds; it is none of his business after all.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Thank you so much for all the reviews. It makes me very happy that this universe is still so popular.

Just to clear up some confusion: This set in December 1913 and Mary and Matthew are engaged. And yes, I did steal the wedding date mentioned in this chapter :).

Please let me know what you think of this chapter.

Thank you so much and have a great weekend,

Kat

* * *

 _Robert_

He sits down on the settee again and puts his head in his hands. He feels strangely empty. He isn't surprised that he isn't sad. He lost his wife but it was no great loss. When Dr. Clarkson told him three weeks ago that in all likelihood the Countess of Grantham would die, he almost felt relieved. Of course he never wished her dead but he did want to be rid of her. He has dreamed of finding a way to end his marriage since before it actually began. He only married because his parents wanted him to, because it was his duty. There has never been any love in his marriage, only ever dislike and as soon as Mary had entered the world, dislike turned into hatred. His wife hated Mary for being a girl and hated him for loving Mary all the same. Mary remained an only child because his wife took a lover not long after Mary's birth. He could not risk a bastard becoming his heir because he would never be able to know if any further child of his wife's would also have been his child. So he just did not go to her room anymore and it was a relief.

He hasn't behaved much better than her, he has had a mistress for the last eighteen years, but at least it has always been the same woman he went to see. His wife switched lovers rather quickly, sometimes so fast that even his mother who has always spied on his wife was surprised by the names of the men they were told his wife spent her nights in London with whenever she went there.

"How are you feeling?" he looks up and sees Mary sitting on the footrest of the settee.

"Empty," he says and she nods. He is glad that she does not look like her mother.

"So do I. But I am not sad."

"You have no reason to be sad," he says. It is true. Mary has only ever known mistreatment from her mother. She has a right to hate her mother.

"It doesn't feel as if I had lost a parent."

"I suppose not."

"But I feel guilty for not being more touched." He takes his daughter's hands in his.

"Don't feel guilty about that. Your mother never behaved like a mother, no one can expect you to grief her as a daughter would." Mary nods and then stares out the window.

"Are you planning to move the wedding?"

"Not unless you want us to. Matthew and I have a settled on Feburary 16th. I will not, I cannot observe the mourning period. But if it is important to you or Granny, then we will move the wedding."

"Don't move it. And I promise I'll walk you down the aisle with a smile on my face, wearing my morning coat."

He has to go to London two days later because he needs to sign some papers regarding the final transferal of his wife's money to the estate. Why that needs to be done remains a mystery to him and Matthew tried to explain it to him, but somehow it does not make any sense. When he is done in London he does not go home, he goes to see her, the love of his life.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Thank you for all the reviews on the last chapters and for telling me that you still liked this universe! It makes me smile every time.

This is a bit late, I know, but I was out all day and at least here it is still Monday :)

Hope you all have a great week,

Kat

* * *

 _The Dowager Duchess of Suffolk_

She almost spits her toast across the table and her son looks at her quite worriedly when she begins to cough.

"What is it?" he asks and looks up from his morning paper.

"Nothing," she says although she knows that Sam will not believe this.

"I can see in your face that it isn't 'nothing'." Sam looks at her expectantly and she mulls her answer over in her head. She loves her son dearly, she loves having breakfast with him every day and lunch and dinner, she even loves having the woman she thinks he is going to marry with them, but spending so much time with her son also has the effect that he is able to see right through her.

"The Countess of Grantham has died."

"So?" Sam says and looks at her questioningly. "We did not know her, did we?"

"No," she says. "Although I did meet her a few times when I met your father. We were presented together. It just made me realize how old I am." She hopes that Sam will swallow the lie. Of course this is not about her being old, this is about the fact that the Earl of Grantham is now a widower and thus free. Free to marry her. Not right away, of course not, but maybe in a year or so. But Sam is not to know about these thoughts, he does not know after all that she knows the Earl of Grantham and if he knew how close she is to Robert he'd probably kick her out the house. Although he'd hardly have any right to do so, his girlfriend whom she is sure will soon be his fiancé has spent too many nights in his room for him to criticize his mother for having a lover. Although she is sure that Robert would not be her lover but her husband if it hadn't been for his mother and her father and that dreadful, dreadful woman he was forced to propose to when he was 19.

"You aren't old Mama. You are 42."

"Thank you very much for reminding me of that," she says but the boyish grin on her son's face makes her forget to be angry at him.

"You are welcome. I have to go to London for the rest of the week. I have to find a new lawyer. It is very difficult to find a trustworthy one and I need one with an expertise in industrial law. I have been thinking about working condition and wages and I need help with it."

"Try Matthew Crawley then," she says without thinking.

"What do you know about lawyers?" he asks and she is incredibly thankful that he has apparently not made the connection between the name Crawley and the Earl of Grantham.

"Oh, I have heard him mentioned a few times at charity luncheons. He is supposed to be trustworthy, maybe that is why I have heard the name before." She has of course heard the name before because Matthew Crawley is Robert's heir and future son-in-law but she cannot tell her son this. Robert however loves Matthew like a son and keeps telling her what a good lawyer he is. Maybe gaining the Duke of Suffolk as a client will be helpful to Matthew in his professional career.

As soon as Sam has left she tells her two most trusted servants, her maid and a cook, that she will be at the cottage and they smile and nod. Her maid tells her she expected this but does not say anything else.


	4. Chapter 4

_Robert_

As soon as he is done signing the papers he sets out for the Suffolk estate. He knows the way by heart, he'd probably find it with his eyes closed. He is very, very thankful for the invention of cars and to the first chauffeur they hired who did not mind teaching him how to drive and not to tell anyone about it.

It has made going to her so much easier. He doesn't need to be careful anymore about which trains to take and to sometimes take a wrong train on purpose first. The Suffolk estate is not far from a train station so at least he could always just walk there and as he always left from London and never from Downton going to the train station in the first place had never been a problem. But he could not be seen entering or leaving the same train once a week with alarming regularity and so he had to take quite a few unnecessary train trips before he deemed cars save and bought one.

He has never been able to drive her somewhere, she would be recognized everywhere close to the Suffolk estate and they'd both be recognized in London. But now that his wife is dead they won't have to hide much longer. He thinks they should probably wait a year before marrying but they can be a bit more open about their partiality for one another as soon as he is out of mourning. Partiality is of course the wrong word. It is mutual pure honest deep unwavering true love that has kept them sane for the last 18 years. At the very beginning he had considered ending the affair, to try to save his marriage and she had understood and been willing to let him go. He really did leave and did not return for three weeks. But he couldn't stay away from her and she welcomed him back with open arms.

He drives past the gates to the grand and admittedly very beautiful driveway and then drives into the woods to her, to their little cottage. She is waiting for him, wearing a simple dress and a simple hairstyle and she looks so beautiful. He would of course love to take her to balls, dressed in the most beautiful dresses. He has seen her in those dresses with diamonds in her hair of course, every once in a while they have a formal dinner at their little cottage, just the two of them. But that is not the same as it would be to take her along as his wife, to have her as the hostess of dinner parties at Downton. That is the only thing he is slightly worried about, that once he marries her he turns her into a countess when she is a duchess now. But he knows that she won't mind, he has said a thousand times that he wishes he had proposed to her instead of proposing to that dreadful woman he married and she has said a thousand times that she would have loved to be his countess.

* * *

AN: Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter. I am really glad so many of you like this story and I am overwhelmed by how many people have said that they really like the TAG universe.

Please let me know how you like this chapter!

Kat


	5. Chapter 5

_The Dowager Duchess of Suffolk_

She hears the car before she sees it and she still has to laugh about seeing Robert drive. It seems uncharacteristic for him and she is sure that he only learnt how to do it to make seeing her much easier. She loves him for it as she loves him for a million other things and when he stops the car and gets out of it she walks towards him and greets him with a swift kiss on the lips. He does not say anything and she understands. She takes his hands and guide him inside where he sits down in what can only be called a living room because it is library and drawing room in one. She moves the footrest so that Robert can put up his feet, gets him a drink and sits down on the opposite chair.

"How are you feeling?" she asks after a while and he looks at her for a long moment before answering.

"Empty and relieved and about that I feel guilty. I was married to that woman for the quarter of a century. I have spent all my adult years as her husband and now she is dead and I feel nothing except for relief because I am finally free of her. That is not right."

"Are you happy that she is dead?"

"No. I could never be happy about another person's death. But I am happy to be free and it is her death that has made me so."

"What about Mary?" She only ever met Mary twice, during the season in London, but is quite concerned about her because Robert has told her about his daughter for almost two decades now.

"She feels mostly the same. She only wants to wear mourning colors until after the funeral. She still wants to get married in February." Robert looks as if he did not fully agree with his daughter's decision and so she asks

"Do you think that is a good idea?"

"It is her decision and I promised I would walk her down the aisle with a smile on my face wearing a morning coat."

"I wish I could watch it."

"February is too early. We can't be seen in public together then. And I couldn't be at a wedding and not talk to you. But I will show you the pictures."

"Would you like me to come to the funeral?"

"I would very much like your moral support but how would we explain your presence there? And it would feel wrong to have my mistress attend my wife's funeral." Robert is right of course, they cannot be seen in public together, not before Robert is out of mourning. And even then they have to be careful for it all not to be too sudden. Her husband died twenty years ago and she never even considered marriage to another man and is well known for her disinterest. She has the reputation of having made her son's upbringing and only her son's upbringing the purpose of her life. A sudden marriage would probably cause awkward questions.

"Darling?" Robert asks and she focuses on him again. "I'd like to go to bed. Maybe we could talk a little before we went to sleep." She nods and tells him that she will call her maid.

* * *

AN: Thank you so much for all the reviews on the last chapter!

From what I gather, _The Affair_ seems to be rather popular and I've been thinking about reworking it a bit. I wrote it in a bit of a rush to be honest and I think that I did not truly do my best with it. Would anyone be interested in reading a reworked version of the story (it would include this prologue as well)? I won't change the major story lines, but I might cut some scene and add a few new ones (there will probably be more new scenes than old ones cut). I'd leave the original story on here as well (so that the cut scenes wouldn't get lost, maybe someone likes them and would be rather disappointed if they were suddenly gone). I thought about posting the reworked version chapter by chapter with a new chapter every second day. What do you think?

Thank you so much,

Kat


	6. Chapter 6

_Robert_

He knows that she doesn't expect anything but talking tonight. He also knows that it does not matter to her. Their affair has never been just about sex. It has always been a part of it because true love does not exist without it, but it has never been its most important or deciding factor.

And so they go to bed, lie down on their sides facing each other and talk. About the arrangements for the funeral, about his being uncomfortable at having to play the sad widower, about Mary wanting to come out of mourning a day later.

They also talk about Sam and his ideas about wages and working hours and Robert agrees that Matthew would probably be a good lawyer to ask. They fall asleep holding hands as they have done countless times during the last 18 years.

When he wakes up the next morning he feels much better and he knows that at least for today he will not be weighed down with what is to follow.

"Good morning, darling," she says to him and smiles an irresistible smile.

"I feel better today," he says in reply and is rewarded with another smile. They spend the day as they usually do, strolling through the woods, hoping not to be seen and spending time together in their cottage. Their shared moments are so far and few between that they have never grown wary of each other and yet they see each other so often that spending an afternoon reading without talking does not seem like time wasted to them.

He knows he can spend only one more night at the cottage and that he will have to leave the next morning. Without talking about, without even mentioning it, they begin to kiss in earnest and tumble onto the bed.

"God, Cora, I love you," he says before he forgets everything around him.

AN: Sorry for not updating yesterday but I was away all day and I only got around to updating _Son of Mine_.

Thank you so much for all the reviews on the last chapter and especially for so many of you saying that you'd like to read a renewed version of The Affair. That will be my next huge project and I am looking forward to working on it very much.

Please let me know what you think about this chapter!

Kat


	7. Chapter 7

Cora

She watches Robert drive away and as soon as she can't see the car anymore she breaks down crying. Not because he left, he has had to leave her so many times that it doesn't hurt anymore and he has always come back.

She cries with relief. After an 18 yearlong affair Robert is finally a free man. Of course he is not completely free of his wife yet, he has to pretend to mourn her and then they will have to let some more time pass before marrying. Robert hasn't mentioned it yet but she is sure that he will propose to her.

For a brief second she wishes that Robert had proposed to her all those years ago in 1889 but he didn't, he was pushed towards someone else and there was no way to change that. Robert and she agreed many years ago to not regret the past but to be thankful for what they have in the present. And when he once said to her 'I am so sorry that I will never be married to you,' she replied 'Never say never'.

Of course she can't be happy about another person's death but she is happy about the consequence of it. She never gave up dreaming about being married to Robert, even when he did. He tried everything to file for a divorce but it wasn't possible, the money, the estate, it all would have been lost and it was a price they both thought Robert could not pay. They would have lost their social status, both of them, been outcasts, made their children outcasts. Very, very briefly did she consider asking Robert to file for a divorce regardless, to go to America with her and Sam and Mary and live with her mother or brother who surely would have taken them in, but she knew that she would put Robert in an impossible situation then because Robert is not the kind of man who likes to live in other peoples' houses.

She also had her lawyers find out if there was any way for her to save Downton and there would have been, but it would have cost her Sam's estate and still they would have been ruined in all social terms. So she decided against pushing Robert towards a divorce. And now nature has taken its course.

She suddenly remembers her son telling her that she was 42 years old a few days ago and it makes her laugh. If Robert and she were lucky, their marriage could still last twice as long as Robert's first marriage did. They can still have it all. Except for one thing of course and for the first time in 18 years the thought of not being able to have another child gives her a pang.

Sam's birth was difficult to say the least and in the words of many, many doctors 'irreparable damage' was done. For the past 18 years knowing that there wouldn't be another child has given her a strange sense of comfort. While she certainly would have liked to have more children had she been married to Robert, that fact that they had an affair had made her glad that they could be sure of not conceiving a child. Had that been a possibility they could not and would not have done what they did. Maybe they would have met sometimes but certainly not for several days almost every week and certainly they would not have had a physical relationship and would not have been as close as they are now.

She can't help but imagine Robert carrying a child, their child, through the Abbey and she feels the tears in her eyes and forces herself not to cry. Instead she focuses on what she remembers of the Abbey. She has ever only spent one night there and it wasn't a very happy occasion that had brought her there. But what she remembers is a beautiful house surrounded by beautiful grounds and she looks forward to seeing it again very much.

Of course Robert will have to propose first but he will and nothing will come in between them this time, they will be together till death do them part.

* * *

AN: So this is the end of the prologue. It will be part of the reworked version of _The Affair_ and I will also change it a bit, mostly concerning the order and probably numbers of changes of perspective.

There are two more chapters of _Son of Mine_ and I doubt that I will be able to start working on _The Affair_ before I have written the last _SoM_ chapter, so there may be a bit of a wait but I'll try not to take too long.

Please let me know how you liked this chapter and if there is anything that you would like to see in the new version of _The Affair_. Of course I can't promise to make it part of the story, but I'd certainly like some inspiration!

Hope you all have a great day and 'see you' on Sunday for the Son of Mine update (if you are reading that as well).

Kat


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